NaNoWriMo Chapter One: Getting Motivated

Even though I’ve never officially participated, I’m a fan of NaNoWriMo because it celebrates something I love: writers supporting each other and building community.  

Writing is a lonely journey as it mostly involves being by oneself, butt in chair, typing away. One of the best arguments for workshops—either in an MFA program or otherwise—is that they can be a great place to pick up mentors and writing buddies. Beta readers and writing groups have their perils but a sense of connection is important to seeing you through the many years you’ll likely be working on your book before anyone in the professional realm (agents, editors) gets involved. Having a second (perhaps third and fourth) pair of eyes on your work is crucial, but moreover, you need the support, the shoulder to cry on during the difficult moments of writing your book, and the perhaps even more challenging process of trying to get published.

In celebration of NaNo this month, I’m going to be sharing my thoughts on four of the pillars of my writing life: getting motivated, building habits, finding momentum, and keeping the faith. I hope to inspire you and make you feel less alone: which is, incidentally, what I believe all good writing does.

I’ll start with a simple question: why bother writing?

No really, why? There are a million things you could do that would be more immediately gratifying than sitting in your chair making things up, including but not limited to: hanging out with your friends, exercising, sleeping, cuddling your dog, catching up on Empire, or reading a book that some other hard working soul has already written. Here is a harsh truth for you: no one will care if you don’t write today. Unless you are currently under contract, it is unlikely anyone will even notice. I say this not to be harsh—I’m on your side—but this is the bargain.

Your reason for writing doesn’t have to be eloquent or noble, it’s okay if you never even tell anyone else what it is. It just has to be deeply meaningful to you or it won’t see you though the hours and weeks and years between the beginning of your writing journey, and that magical transformative moment when someone else—publishing professionals, readers—will actually care whether or not you write today. And even then, you will need to care ten times as much, because even if you become a bestselling, prize-winning author, everyone’s life will go on if you never write another word, I promise you.

I should say here too that your reason needn’t have anything to do with commercial success, recognition, or even readers. Perhaps you want to write because it helps you sort out your thoughts, or to record your memories for future generations. These are fine reasons, so long as you feel inspired by them. Writing has excellent side benefits, after all: it can make you more empathetic and thoughtful, and in our overstimulated beeping buzzing world, it can carve out space for those two rare treasures: quiet and solitude.

Know why you write. Answer the question, and hold onto that answer in the days to come, days that will test you with the world’s indifference. Think of this as your personal mission statement, the few crucial words to carry you through as you make your way to the 50K mark.

 

Reflections on #WhyIWrite

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The other night I spent some time going through childhood photos looking for a picture my publisher had requested. My mom and I drank wine and reminisced over bad hair, bad clothes, and good memories. I came across the above gem, which is a photo of me in fifth grade with my Reflections (an arts contest run by the PTA) trophy. I had just finished reading my winning poem in front of an audience that probably numbered around forty, but felt like four hundred. This past week, I’ve been glued to the #WhyIWrite hashtag, so the memory felt especially apropos.   

I wrote winning poems several years running in middle school and somewhere there is a small collection of these nifty trophies. The poems themselves were really little stories, little scenes of the larger goings-on of my imagination; they were the beginnings of my fiction writing. I went on to write plenty of poetry throughout high school, a mortifying amount of it about boys. I had a lot of feelings. The poetry thing didn’t stick, and it’s been many years since I’ve written a poem, which is probably a good thing considering that internet exists and they might not all remain tucked away in notebooks as my childhood poems are.

Seeing this photo, I remember how I nervous I was to read in front that audience: made up chiefly of the parents of other winners, I’d imagine. I also remember being really stoked on that matching shirt, velvet choker, and headband combo I’m rocking. And I’m reminded too that it was always there, the desire to write. It was always the subject I excelled at in school, the thing I most looked forward to. Throughout my childhood, she tells me, my mom would find miniature legal pads (which we for some reason always had boxes of) filled with mysterious dialog and snippets of scenes. As far back as I can remember, there’s been this stream of it—the parallel world that my fiction originates from—going on ceaselessly in my mind alongside my real life. It was only as I grew up that, as all children do, I came to understand that my experiences were not universal. Somewhere on the road to adolescence, others tuned this imaginary world out. I couldn’t tell you exactly where or why because I never did. Those of us who don’t, I suppose, become artists or eccentrics or both.

I’m grateful for the circumstances that allowed me to pursue my writing—the immense privilege of educated, encouraging parents and the resources for books and time to read them, education and time to write them. I often stress with students and clients, the necessity to keep the business of being an author separate from the art of being a writer. The latter is so very personal. The truth is, a great many things that are written ought not to be published, but it doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be written. Because the act itself is beautiful and important; a measure of grace that should be encouraged in all.

 

Chasing Thirty Redux

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In the fall of 2011, I made a list: thirty things I wanted to do before I turned thirty. I was twenty eight at the time. I’d just gone through a breakup that I was more relieved than sad about, I was living with my parents after a big move back from New York, and was feeling generally stalled out. Nothing was happening with my career, nothing was happening with my writing, and I no longer had the distinction of living in New York. So I started a blog, which I pitched as a column to a site I’d just begun reading and loved: The Gloss. I chronicled my adventures and reflections in a weekly column called Chasing Thirty, which I’ve now collected and made available as an e-book that you can download for free on Noisetrade Books.

I had great fun with the list and the column. During that year, I travelled to Argentina, joined a salsa dancing team, published one of my collecting-dust novels on the site in serial format, learned Spanish, and hosted a fake bachelorette party, among other adventures.

Re-reading these columns four years later has been an entertaining and somewhat sobering experience. It is no exaggeration to say that the very best and the very worst moments of my life have all taken place between now and when I began writing the column. I lost my sister, I met the love of my life and got engaged, I sold a novel, found a job I love. When I re-read these columns, I see harbingers of all of these things and am deeply grateful for the friends, family, and co-workers who’ve been by my side through the highs and lows.

I didn’t do all thirty things on the list. But I can see now that it was never about that. It was about figuring out what I really wanted and finding a way to put that out into the world. To say it aloud, to write it down. Writing the weekly column forced me to reflect on what it meant to be me in that moment. What did I fear? What did I hope for? Who was I and what did I want?

Looking back on the experience is a great reminder that when you feel stuck, the best to do is to start moving and keep moving. Even if you don’t find yourself going in exactly the right direction, you’ll be going somewhere, and sometimes, that’s all you need.

 

 

None of it will be perfect, all of it will be wonderful

 

The above are my words to live by for the next year. Just as life tends to throw its worst at you all at once, it also sometimes heaps so many simultaneous blessings on you that you’re not sure what to do with yourself. As anyone who reads this blog likely knows, I have my debut novel coming out next year and as of a couple of weeks ago, I now have another large, joyful occasion to plan in 2016: a wedding.

As my Facebook page helpfully reminded me, I got my dog, Oliver, almost exactly three years ago. The beginning of my life with Oliver was a marker of sorts for me, the moment I began to emerge from a time when my life was at its worst: with an all-encompassing family tragedy, a stalled career, and a train wreck of a love life. Of course the latter two things were influenced by the first, but it certainly felt like nothing could go my way circa 2011/ 2012. Things slowly got better and then, over the last year and change, took a turn for the awesome. I met my now fiancé, Derek, I got a new agent, and then a book deal. Work started going like gangbusters. Suddenly I was batting a thousand.

I’m not naïve enough to think that good times are here to stay forever and always—that’s not how life is. But as far as game-changing happy events go, true love and a book deal are two pretty big ones.

Anyone who has planned a wedding or a book launch can tell you that they can be as crazy-making as they are joyful. There are so many details, and if you let it, the pressure to do it all perfectly can rob you of the joy of the moment. Hence the mantra.

I never had a particular fantasy around what my wedding day would look like. I’ve had thoughts about what I liked and didn’t like about other people’s special days during the dozen or so that I’ve attended over the last few years. Since Derek and I started talking in earnest about getting married, we’ve discussed some of the details, like where (his parents’ house) and when (next summer). But I suppose I’ve always felt more strongly about the things I didn’t want at my own wedding: no ball gown, no bouquet toss, nothing that says “princess”.

On the other hand, I’ve thought a great deal about what life as a published author might be like: spent nights awake writing my acknowledgements, fantasizing about being interviewed by Terry Gross, or just imagining the simple moment when I walk into one of my favorite bookstores and behold my own work.

Planning can be fun, it can fill your days with dreamy anticipation, but it can also transport you out of the present moment: the one in which, miraculously, your lifelong dream is in the process of coming true, and the man you love is your fiancé. And after all the books have been signed and the canapes have been eaten and the pictures taken, there will be the man and the book: the things that matter most. The things that are here to stay.    

  

PNBA from the Other Side

Last year, I attended the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association’s annual tradeshow on behalf of Girl Friday. I moderated a panel on building book communities and sat on a second panel about reading and influencing. Last year was my first time at the conference and I was amazed by the sense of community. Here were folks from Northwest booksellers and libraries big and small—along with sales reps from publishers of all sizes—and everyone seemed to be friends with each other. This was the book community as its best. I’ve attended a number of writers’ conferences with GFP over the past couple of years and while they’re a lot of fun, the atmosphere is entirely different. Many of the attendees at those conferences are writers hungry for contact with agents, publishers, and anyone else who might shepherd their work to the top of the proverbial pile. I love talking to fellow writers at any stage, but this dynamic often creates an unfortunate atmosphere of “us and them”. (Note to aspiring writers: if you think that foisting your manuscript on an unsuspecting agent when you see them a conference is an effective strategy, be advised, it is not.)

This year I attended the conference as an author with my effervescent Simon and Schuster sales rep Christine. I spent the bulk of Saturday hanging out by the S&S booth chatting with booksellers and librarians about Losing the Light and signing galleys for folks to add to their overstuffed totes. One bookseller told me she brought a tiny bag with what she needed for the trip, and her biggest suitcase to cart books home in. Getting a haul of free books just never get old.

Not long after I arrived I was introduced to a bookseller from Powell’s (the mecca of Northwest bookstores) and found myself in the transcendent moment of being asked, for the very first time, to sign a copy of my own book. I signed many more copies throughout the day, and by the time I left, had exhausted my supply of galleys.

Chatting with booksellers and library folks throughout the day, I heard many incredible stories of all the creative ways they interact with their communities. There were tales of book clubs and French clubs and pairings with local restaurants and wineries. One owner of a small bookseller told me about the older gentleman who comes into the bookstore each and every day. “We sent him a card when his cat died,” she told me, “we were so sad for him.”

I thought how lucky the communities that these bookstores belonged to were to have them. That sense of community and knowledge—not only of the books they carry but of their particular patrons—is something that can never truly be replicated online. As easy as it is for readers to purchase a book they want with the click of the button, helping them figure out which book they want is more complex than ever. In our ever-expanding world of reading options, the flood of content we all contend with, the presence of a trusted source to place something in our hands and say “read this” has never been more crucial.

Long live the bookseller. 

First Comes Love

What is the most important element to writing a book? The one thing you must have?

Is it talent? Knowledge? Marketing chutzpah? Dedicated writing habits?

All of these matter a great deal but they’re nothing without passion.

As my colleague and friend Jenna pointed out in a post on the Girl Friday blog not long ago, the writing process is a long one. And the publishing process—that of bringing the book you labored so hard to create to the world—makes it longer yet. Combined, it can feel relentless and endless: a process that almost certainly takes years, perhaps many of them.

Being a writer is a life’s work. It takes years of practice and study (also known as reading) to hone your craft. Being an author is another deal entirely: this is a the business end of books and many people who write books—memoirists with one extraordinary story to tell, subject matter experts, politicians—are not writers primarily. But one thing all authors must share is an abiding passion for their book.

The good news is that you’re not entirely alone in this: you can and should enlist many people to help you along on your journey. Right now for instance, between my agent, my editor, my in-house marketing and publicity team, my hired publicist, and various industry friends that are offering their support (god bless them), I have a veritable village working with me to bring my book to the world. And that is a beautiful thing. Part of the dream of landing a traditional publishing deal is that other people are investing in your book because they believe in it. Some things didn’t change so much post book deal—I still get up to write in the mornings, I still go to work, I’m still me—but this was one huge thing that did. As I said to a friend recently: after being the only one carrying the lonely torch of my writing aspirations all these years, suddenly having other people care about my book—not about me but about the book itself—is a revelation. In this way my writing life feel markedly different.

And yet.

I continue to care more than all of them, and that’s exactly as it should be. Being a writer is tough stuff, it almost certainly involves quite a lot of rejection and disappointment before any kind of real success can be found. And life will always try to crowd writing out. I’m busy, you’re busy, we’re all busy. Can we just agree on that? America is too busy and too obsessed by being busy, so it’s not likely to change anytime soon. This is a topic for another day—but it’s a certainty that you will have many demands on your time other than writing. So what will bring you there? What will inspire you to wake up earlier than you need to? Devote hours of your weekend? The world is indifferent to whether you write or not, I promise you.

And this is the thing you can never outsource. Even if you’re one of those authors I mentioned—the non-writer authors—you still need to have a passionate drive to see your story told. The author is at the molten core of any book project: and if they lose steam at any point in the process that Jenna so elegantly laid out? That project is doomed.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how many experts you hire, how much fancy software you purchase, or impressive degrees you amass: You absolutely must feel the love.  

 

 

The Wild Horses of Overwhelm

I have this particular image that comes to mind when my life starts to feel out of control. I’m on a horse galloping off through a field. I’m not sure where I’m going or if I’m coming back, the crucial thing is, I’m getting away from everything. On a horse. There are often other horses with us, a stampede of sorts, and we are getting the hell out of there. The horse is usually chestnut or black: not to be confused with a white horse or the accompanying prince, the fact that I am the only human in this fantasy is central.

When this image starts popping up, I know I’ve hit a wall. Because, while I do love horses, I don’t truly wish to leave any part of my life behind. I love my work, my life, and most definitely my prince. But sometimes it’s suddenly just all too much.

The wild horses are a consequence of the hyper-drive that I spend a lot of my time in, the escape fantasy that emerges from the desperation of not knowing how to slow down. One minute, I’m so into it. I want to be a bad, boss bitch and do all the things. I’m leaning in, I’m daring greatly, working and writing, eating, praying, and loving my heart out and then BAM! Wild horses.

Maybe the horse imagery doesn’t do it for you, but my guess is there isn’t a person reading this who can’t relate to this feeling of hands-in-the-air I give up. We live in a stressed-out, demanding, overwhelmed kind of world. A lot of these factors may be out of our control at any given time. Here’s a little four-step process I use to sort through what is:

 

1.      Make a list.

Stress can be most pernicious when it’s a nebulous black cloud following you everywhere you go. So write down everything that is stressing you out. Maybe it won’t look as bad once you have it all down on paper, maybe it will look worse! Deep breath! That’s what the next steps are for.

 

2.      Ask: What can you delegate?

“If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself” Ha! Words to die by right there. Don’t be a martyr to your own inner control freak; mine tends to reach for the wheel the more stressed out I get. Have the humility to ask for and accept help from your partner, your co-workers, your friends, whomever.

 

3.      Ask: What can you let go of?

If you’re life feels like a closet that’s bursting at the seams with a whole lot of nothing to wear then it’s time to do some sorting. Much like those jean shorts buried in the back your closet, there’s bound to be something on your list that is neither rewarding nor necessary. If so? Toss it!

 

4.      Cut yourself a break.

I’ve realized that this busy year ahead is the perfect time to ditch my habit of going into a downward spiral when I’m feeling stressed out. I simply don’t have time for the pouting and doubting and self-recrimination that I’m apt to go into when I get really overwhelmed. What better time to learn to be kind to myself?

  

How do you cope when it’s all too much?

 

The Dream Lives

 

Walking to the Atria offices from the subway last Thursday to meet the team who’d be working on my book, I was suddenly struck that this, exactly this, was what I had worked so hard and held out so long for. I was an author now.

There are many ways to bring a book to the world—from self-publishing to hybrid to traditional presses small and large—and at Girl Friday we work with people every day who are making ingenious use of this dazzling array of options. But when I dreamed of being an author—when I was little girl, when I was a teenager, when I was a college writing major, and most of all when I was a twenty-five year old getting up early in the morning to write before heading to work at the Random House building in midtown—this was the dream. Me in a snappy blue wrap dress heading to a sleek office building in Manhattan (Simon & Schuster in this case) to meet with a group of bright, enthusiastic twenty-somethings who’d be working on my book; followed, of course, by a fancy lunch with my lovely editor.

These details, and all the ones to follow—the book launch, the tour, the parties to celebrate—matter for the same reason our thousand little traditions around getting married matter. It’s not that the flowers and the dress and the ring and the pomp and circumstance are what make a marriage, but the rights of passage are still important. They let us pause, look at where we are, mark the important passage of a dream realized.

Meeting the team at Atria was surreal. I’ve spent ten years working, in various capacities, on the other side of the table. Listening to them talk about the book, remark on the characters and the cover, ask me questions about my influences, threw me for a loop. Logically, I knew they’d read it but still my gut reaction was: how do you guys know all of this? It was the first time I’d been in a room full of people I’d never met who’d read my book. If I’m lucky, I suppose this will happen many more times, but this was the first, and it felt miraculous.

When I came by the offices the next day to pick up a galley hot off the presses to take with me to a dinner, I was nearly out of my mind with glee. It looks like a real book now, nearly the final thing. I barely resisted the urge to shout to the security guards: You guys! It’s my BOOK!

I vividly remember watching authors swan through the halls at Random House, with a strange aura of importance around them, and thinking someday that will be me. And now—many years, disappointments, and rejections later—incredibly, wonderfully, it is.     

Cover Reveal!

I couldn't be more thrilled to share the cover for Losing the Light! It feels utterly surreal to see my name on something that looks like it belongs to a real book: and not only that, a book I I would immediately pick up if I saw it on a table at a bookstore. Where it will be, in about six months time. 

The months of waiting for your debut novel to come out are strange and wondrous: with every step in the process--the copyedit, choosing a title, the first pass pages--inching you ever closer to the dream you've been holding onto for all these many years. 

In addition to my cover, I have another fun piece of material to share: a video that my friends over at Book Country put together for me. Enjoy! 

Life Unplugged

Point No Point, BC where I spent three days with no cell service. 

Point No Point, BC where I spent three days with no cell service. 

There are times when you want a vacation, and then there are times when you need one. When you’re likely to end up curled in the fetal position in the corner or bursting into tears at the post office for no reason if you don’t take one.

For me, the perfect vacation is a mix of a little adventure, a lot of reading, some great food, and zero connectivity. It used to be that going out of the country would automatically mean you were disconnected, but now with free WiFi in every café, it takes a little more discipline.

Reader, I’m not here to tell you that I took a vacation and discovered the evils of social media. I love social media! Twitter forever! But study after study shows us how addictive it is, and it’s healthy to break away once in a while and reassess your habits.

Itchy Trigger Finger  

The first day of my vacation, I was sitting in an armchair reading and noticed that the mint from our little window box had grown so wild that it had gotten caught in the doorway, making it look as though it was ready to take over the apartment. Ha, I thought, I should Instagram that! This wasn’t the last time I caught myself thinking in social media-ready bites. This isn’t a bad thing, I need this skill for work, but it made me realize how deeply my work life and my personal life are intertwined at this point. Like many of us, I use social media not for one particular thing but for a mix of connecting with friends and family, clients, and other people in the great jumble of work and leisure that the book world at large is to me.

Take a Look Around

I noticed my tendency to reach for my phone the moment that I was otherwise unoccupied, when I was waiting for a friend or eating my breakfast alone in my kitchen. Instead I stared out windows, people watched, and eavesdropped. Oh the things I learned about the love lives of the twenty-something girls sitting next to me while I was waiting for my boyfriend at our favorite pizza place! She broke up with Carl twice but at least the second time he didn’t send out a mass text to her whole family. It’s so embarrassing that her mom still invites him to dinner whenever he’s in town. God Mom. (NB: what twenty-something dude is running around with the name Carl?).

No Distractions

Without my phone, and all its many portals to the wide world, I was without distractions in a way that I’ve grown unused to. I had occasional moments of feeling disconnected in an unpleasant way, like everyone might be at a party I hadn’t been invited to. But mostly I just felt more relaxed: I wrote in my journal, I took pictures just to have them, to put them in a frame on the wall maybe. And whatever thoughts came, I let them come—joyful, anxious, dark—they washed over me.

Now that the detox is over and I am back online, I hope to learn to use these things better. I missed tweeting about books, and I can’t wait to logon on light up some of the authors I read over vacation. (#amreading! Er…#wasreading!) But there’s a lot of social media time I spend that is far less justified: perusing the wedding pictures of a high school classmate that I could not for the life of me produce a meaningful memory of, for instance. I want to keep the good, but ditch the junk.  

What do you notice when you log off?   

Bumbershoot!

 If you live in Seattle, we probably don’t have to tell you that Bumbershoot is a big deal around here. The iconic music and arts festival is in its forty-fifth year and draws over 100,000 people every Labor Day weekend. The live music often draws the most buzz (you can find this year’s lineup here), but the festival also features a spectacular array of comedy, theatre, dance, film, lectures, and literary and visual arts.

This year, GFP is sponsoring a program on the Words & Ideas stage, and we couldn’t be more pumped about our lineup. Look how excited Kristin and I are in this video.

 

By the way, if you’ve ever wondered what our Seattle headquarters looks like, there you go.

 

Here’s a shorter version of the video. I wanted to share this mostly so that you can see the sassy face I give Kristin when I pass her the proverbial mic. And no, I have no idea why I made that face. It took us a few takes to get this—strange things happened.

 

I’ve included all the details of our lineup below so you know where and when to find us during the festival. We’re all going to be running around trying to get you to contribute to our crowd-sourced novella and to play conjunction Twister with us. You can purchase tickets here. Hope to see you there!

 

“Parenting with a Past with Michelle Tea and Jerry Stahl.” Two writers discuss their journeys from life on the edge to life as devoted parents. 5:30 p.m., Saturday, September 5, in the Charlotte Martin Theatre.

Michelle Tea is the author of multiple books and founder of Mutha Magazine. Her newest book is How to Grow Up: A Memoir. Jerry Stahl is a screenwriter and author. His newest book is OG Dad: Weird Shit Happens When You Don’t Die Young.

 

“Scary Feminist with Peaches, Chelsea Cain, and Mandy Stadtmiller.” Three iconoclastic women delve headfirst into sex, gore, and feminism. 5:30 p.m., Sunday, September 6, in the Charlotte Martin Theatre.

Chelsea Cain is a New York Times bestselling author of horror novels that turn the genre on its ear. Her newest book is One Kick. Peaches is a pop culture icon. Her latest project is the book What Else Is in the Teaches of Peaches. Mandy Stadtmiller is a writer and comedian. She is the editor-at-large at xoJane and is host of the News Whore podcast.

 

“Writing the Northwest with Timothy Egan, Brian Doyle, and Jamie Ford.” KUOW’s Marcie Sillman will lead a discussion among three award-winning authors on the role of place in their writing and how their disparate backgrounds influence their take on the Northwest. 5:30 p.m., Monday, September 7, in the Charlotte Martin Theatre.

Timothy Egan is a Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times contributor and the author of seven books, including The Big Burn. Brian Doyle is the editor of Portland Magazine and the author of Mink River. His newest book is Martin Marten. Jamie Ford is the New York Times bestselling author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet. His newest book is Songs of Willow Frost.

 

Treat Yourself

Meet Bianca. 

Meet Bianca. 

 

When I got my book deal last fall, it was naturally a cause for celebration. There’d been years and years of tears, angst, and rejection that had preceded that phone call from my agent Carly, telling me we had an offer.

For a good ten minutes after I put the phone down, I couldn’t stop crying: tears of relief, of joy, of the particular type you cry when the thing you’ve longed for so hard and nearly lost faith would ever happen happens. I hugged my co-workers: who popped a bottle of champagne during the one o’clock meeting in my honor. I called my mom and dad and boyfriend. Later I called a number of friends who had been reassuring me for years that this day would come. I went out to dinner with my boyfriend to our favorite restaurant where yet more champagne was had. It was a great day. So yes, I celebrated. And then, as quickly as I could, I got back to work.

There’s plenty of work that goes into a book once the deal is made, and perhaps even more crucially, I rededicated my efforts to working on the next book. I know all too well what a potentially perilous time the debut book release can be for an author: that thrilling and destabilizing mix of anticipation and fear. Writing is the thing that has always kept me sane; I knew I’d need it now more than ever.

When I saw Judith Curr, president and publisher of Atria, give the keynote address during the San Francisco Writers Conference last February, she made some comments about goal-setting really stuck with me. She advocated being specific about goals and celebrating each milestone along the way, rather than gritting your teeth and losing perspective. She told us that she buys herself a piece of jewelry every time she has a big success, to remind her of what went into it.

I had always planned to do the same when I got my book deal. I’m not much of a jewelry person, but there is one piece I’ve always coveted: the Cartier Love Bracelet. The bracelet actually plays a role in my novel and I’d always imagined that once I sold the book, I’d buy myself one. I envisioned it dangling delicately from my wrist as I typed, reminding me of the journey I’d been on, inspiring me to continue on when I wasn’t feeling so hopeful. But once my advance check was received and stashed away in my savings, taxes begrudgingly paid on it, I just couldn’t do it. The bracelet is obscenely expensive—which is sort of the point, to buy myself something I would normally abstain from—but the money felt too loaded, it felt like I’d worked harder for that money than every other dollar I’ve earned in my life combined.

Then a couple of months ago I got an email from my editor that the audio rights to my book had been sold to Brilliance Audio. I almost didn’t know how to process such news. The idea that something could happen with my work without me having to hustle for it was incomprehensible. And there would be a second smaller advance to boot! Unlike the original advance money—which I felt tempted to convert to gold bars so that I could look at it and keep it forever—this felt so random and unexpected that it was more like winning money from a slot machine than earning it. This money I felt okay spending.

But the bracelet still didn’t feel right. Much like my main character Brooke, I’ve changed a lot during the unfolding of this book. When I was living in New York, the Cartier bracelet would have been just the thing. But now? I wanted something that could take me places, that could help me appreciate how far I’ve come just to end up right back where I started: Seattle.

It turns out the cost of a Cartier bracelet will buy you a really nice road bike. And a week ago, I became the proud owner of a Bianchi Impulso. Feeling the slick carbon frame fly underneath me on my inaugural ride with my boyfriend this weekend, I knew I’d chosen well.  It might have been the best money I’d ever made, but it also feels like the best money I’ve ever spent.  

Ten Lessons from #TenThingsNotToSayToAWriter

When I was a creative writing major in college, I got my first taste of the bafflingly obnoxious way that some people respond to a pronouncement of writerly ambitions:

“Don’t worry,” one bro a friend and I met an L.A. bar told me, “I had a bullshit major in college too. I turned out fine.”

Reader, I assure you, he did not turn out fine.

This was an egregious example but many well-meaning (ish) people seemed to fret about what I would do with such a fanciful degree. Did I want to teach? No…I wanted to write. And hey! What do you know, a decade after graduation, I use my degree every day of my life. So there.

One fantasizes that getting a book deal will stem the tide of this mystifying awkwardness. At very least, if one becomes famous for it, people will be respectful of the profession, right? Oh, sadly not, as last week’s hilarious and cringe-inducing hashtag #TenThingsNotToSayToAWriter on Twitter proved.

As a public service message to all, here are ten things you should keep in mind when talking to writers:  

1.      We don’t like to work for free any more than you do: 

2.      We don’t need to hear your book idea…

3.      And we definitely don’t want to write it for you: 

4.      This IS our job. We get paid for it (see above): 

5.      Buy the book cheapskate. This is how we make a living (see above): 

6.      Wait, you do know how to read right?

7.      That’s so funny, because we have totally dabbled in brain surgery! 

8.      Why didn’t WE think of that?

9.      If you can’t say something nice…

10.      Let us go fetch you a gold star, BRB: 

 

The Cool Author

 

Last week, a writer told me an agent story that is the stuff authors’ nightmares are made of. The details of this story are always similar: after toiling away on their novel for years, a hopeful author summons all of their courage to send their work into the world. They send off query letters and wait. Then something incredible happens: an agent falls in love with their work. And it’s a match! Hurray! Then for whatever reason, the agent ghosts. Perhaps they reappear with some vague information and apologies about their absence, but ultimately, the result is that the author’s work is never properly submitted. This process can take months or years to unfold while the author waits it out as this writer had: too polite to draw the line with the flakey agent, too scared to risk the chance they’ve been given. They’ve done their research, they know how hard it is to get an agent: what if they can’t get another? Maybe flakey agent will come around.

“I tried really hard not to bug her too much,” the writer told me, as she recounted the tale of not one but two flakey agents that had put her through the ringer.

None of what happened was this writer’s fault, but she’d accidently become a doormat after getting caught in a diabolical trap so many of us find ourselves in, that of trying to be the “Cool Author”.

There is a brilliant passage in Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl that had women round the world nodding their heads. It concerns that mythical being of post-feminist pop culture: The Cool Girl. 

“Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl.”

This resonated hard with so many of us, whether we’ve played the Cool Girl or not in previous relationships, we know the trope all too well. We’ve surely hit up against the expectation of it, and her equally legendary counterpart: the Crazy Girl (alternately known simply as That Girl i.e. “I don’t want to be that girl.”). It’s a false dichotomy: be Cool lest everyone think you’re Crazy.

The Crazy Girl in her extreme incarnation is the stalker, the nut job, the stage five clinger, the jealous, vindictive, obsessive nightmare woman. Of course this woman, though rare, is out there, though usually far less actually dangerous than her male counterpart. Some people are crazy, some of them are women, sure. But the Crazy Girl is more often used as a shaming tool to ensure that women don’t express their needs and wants in a way that will make a man uncomfortable, or to, heaven forbid, call him on his bad or childish behavior. Still, we all fear this label.

I’ve noticed that many writers, male and female, similarly fear being the Crazy Author. Now, just as some Crazy Girls exist, so does the Crazy Author. I have met a handful that truly earned the label in my many years working in publishing, and the thing about the Crazy Author is—much like the Crazy Girl—they are neither aware that they are being the Crazy, nor are they terribly concerned about being the Crazy, they’re just running with it. They berate you for not doing things exactly as they wanted, they yell and cry and throw temper tantrums and tell their agent to call your boss. They call you on weekends, there is no spot on NPR or rave review that will satiate them. They are impossible to please, ego-driven, nightmare humans. Everyone in publishing has a couple of stories. No one wants to be the Crazy Author, because the Crazy author is the worst.

Much better to be the Cool Author, the one everyone goes the extra mile for and thinks “books like this are the reason I work in publishing”, the author who sends flowers to the assistants, and treats to the staff, and that everyone in the office gets excited about when they stop by.

This is a fine aspiration. But, just as in romantic relationships, when the desire to be Cool instead of Crazy, clouds our judgement to the point that we endure bad treatment or don’t speak our mind, (“Whatever you guys want! I don’t mind! It’s only my treasured novel that I spent ten years on, but I’m easy! I’m cool!”) it becomes a problem.

My advice? Be good to the people who work on your book. Most of the agents and other publishing folks I know (and I know many) are some of the kindest, hardest working, brightest, most passionate people I’ve ever met. It’s why I stay in this industry despite its foibles. But if you do get a bad apple, don’t stand for it. You have a right to be treated fairly and respectfully; you have a right to expect trust and good communication from those you work with. Whatever you do, don’t trade your dignity for Cool.  

 

 

 

 

More Human than Human

 

Last week there was a happening in book publishing. It came in the form of a newly published novel from Harper Lee, who has gone these many decades shying away from the limelight, never seeking publication for any work her beyond beloved 1960 novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. The circumstances surrounding the novel’s publication are extremely shady, but that’s another post altogether.

TKAM happens to be the favorite book of one my fellow Girls Friday, Leslie Miller (Lam as we all call her). She wrote a post for the GFP blog last week about the fervor over Go Set a Watchman and, in particular, what it “reveals” about iconic hero Atticus Finch—a character Lam herself was so affected by that she named her eldest son after him.

As she put it in our conversation about the hullabaloo at the office, you would think someone had discovered damning evidence about a presidential candidate rather than a literary character who—much as he may have been inspired by the author’s actual father, much as he’s become a cultural icon—is not actually, you know, a real person.

But we could be forgiven for thinking he was, couldn’t we? The books I really love, the ones that stay with me for years after I’ve read them, are usually ones that have caused me to suspend disbelief to the point that I do, on some level, feel that the characters and worlds they create are real. Not flesh and blood, but real in some even deeper way, spiritual sense. I still think about Briony from Atonement and Esperanza from The House on Mango Street and wonder what became of them after I left them. Because those books touched something beyond the rational, it’s why I loved them so much.

In a world where the images and impressions of our real life public figures—our politicians and celebrities and sports heroes—are managed and obscured to within an inch of their existence, it makes sense that we’d feel closer to our fictional heroes: the ones who hide nothing from us, who offer their whole selves for our judgement, our education, and our comfort. Maybe they feel real because, on one level, they are.  

 

What’s it all about?

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My boyfriend was a groomsman in a wedding last weekend and though I knew some of the guests, I was meeting most of the people there for the first time. In the adult world this usually means answering one question over and over again “What do you do?” and in my case—as part of the answer to this question is “I’m a novelist.”—the inevitable follow-up question: “What is your book about?”

Even though I’ve gotten increasingly good at answering this question, it still makes me feel a little put on the spot. There will always be a part of me that screams I don’t know, never mind, STOP ASKING ME! as though the question is a threat, as though the person’s response to my answer might be “Well that sounds like a dumb book, why did you write that?” I ask the same question of fellow writers I meet, by the way, it’s the utterly obvious and polite question to ask really, what else do you say in response to “I’m a writer”?

If you want to be a professional writer of books, you need to be able to answer this question, first to yourself, then to the agents you’d like to represent you, to the publishing house you hope buys the book, to the readers you hope to draw in, and to every person you ever encounter socially for the rest of your life until you are so famous you can just say “Oh hi, I’m J.K. Rowling.” And there’s no further explanation needed.

In many ways the entire process of packaging and marketing a book is an attempt to answer this question. The cover copy should obviously tell the reader what the book is about, but so should the images on the cover itself, the book’s title, and even the font of the book’s title.

Titles have been on my mind quite a lot lately as we’ve been trying to come up with a new one for my book. On the one hand, brainstorming about titles can be a fun exercise, and it’s awesome to have such bright bookish minds weighing in; on the other hand, the whole discussion makes me want to take a long nap. This book has been in my life for thirteen years. I’ve had dozens of drafts and working titles over those years: short dramatic ones, long overwrought ones, pseudo-intellectual obscure ones pulled form lines of poetry. At this point, I feel like a bride who has tried on too many wedding dresses.

And a book’s title is important with a capital “I”—you dream of people calling it by its name. “Have you read The Book yet? You must. It’s so good.” But what name should that be? Out of the 80,000 words that comprise the final book, how do I choose two or three to introduce it to the world? One simple phrase to answer the eternal question: “What is your book about?”

 

 

Endurance

As I hoofed it around the lake this past Saturday on my morning run, sweating buckets as the temperature climbed towards ninety, I called on a well-used part of my psyche to spur myself on for the final mile. It’s the part that says “Yes, you can. You don’t want to, it’s unpleasant, but yes, actually you can,” when whatever else it is that is screaming out in protest threatens to overwhelm me.

One of the best compliments I ever received was from a childhood tennis coach and friend of my family’s named Perry. Growing up, he was like a big brother to me and his influence in me went far beyond developing a surefire second serve. It was he who taught me that being tough and being positive were usually the same thing on the tennis court. Your most fearsome opponent was yourself, and the moment you started talking her down, you might as well give up.

A couple of years ago when I was getting back into tennis many years after my college career ended, he said to me after I just finished cranking through a set of forehands: “There it is, AD, the eye of the tiger.” I laughed at the hokey reference and asked exactly what he meant by that. “It’s the look you get: so determined and focused. In all the years I’ve coached, I’ve only seen a few other people who had it.” As Perry pointed out, I’d beaten many people over the years that I had no business beating because of “the eye”. Players who were ranked much higher than me, who had better strokes, were stronger and faster, had more raw talent, and had been paying since they were three. The one thing in my tennis game that I could count on was that I wanted it more than my opponent. When I got on the court with someone who wanted it as much? Those were the matches I lived for.

Tennis is a game where skill matters a great deal, of course, but it’s also a physically and mentally taxing sport. The willingness to do whatever it takes to win can make the difference between losing a match and being done with it and winning, albeit excruciatingly slowly. 

Writing is exactly like this.

It takes a long time to learn how to write a book, and even longer to time to actually write one, and much longer still to write a decent book. And that’s before you even step into the publishing arena to endure—most likely—years of rejection letters, close calls, and other varied disappointments and indignities.

Going through these things is no fun, but somehow talking about it once you’re on the other side of it (you have a book deal, or even better, a bestseller) is downright glee-inducing. Writers love to talk about the struggle easily as much as readers love to revel in the stories of an unemployed JK Rowling scrawling the idea for Harry Potter on a napkin while her train was stalled or Cheryl Strayed having her garbage service discontinued just a year before Wild hit.

Of course writers would want people to know what they went through to get where they are, how hard-earned their success really is. Any writer can tell you that there are few things more frustrating than when a friend or acquaintance with no writing background casually suggests that perhaps they too should write their novel or memoir and get their share of publishing pie.

I also think that looking back on the hard-fought ascent to writing success—however you define it—has a tendency to make writers nostalgic. Because as good as it feels to finally be getting somewhere with your writing, it was on that rocky path that—bit by bit, bird by bird—you found yourself, that you discovered that part of you that says: yes, actually, you can. 

Compare Despair

Are we living in the age of envy?

It used to be that we could only compare ourselves to those we knew in real life, and even then only when we saw or spoke to them. Now unfathomable amounts of information about our co-workers, friends, exes, and acquaintances are a click away. Once upon a time celebrities were remote, glamorous beings with no pretentions of being “just like us”. Now I could probably hop on Instagram and tell you what Cara Delevingne had for breakfast. Photos of Reese Witherspoon come up on my feed right in between pictures of my friends’ dogs, the spectacular bloody mary from their brunch, and stunning vistas from their hikes. Regular users of social media develop a kind of sixth sense for curating snapshots of their lives: a funny conversation overheard at the office of their cool job, a hot new novel placed next to a between a cappuccino with elaborately designed foam, held by their perfect manicure.

Pouring over these updates can be fun…or it can induce stomach-churning envy.

Last week Jilly Gagnon, writing for Elle.com, talked about exploring her feelings of jealousy after a friend of hers landed a flashy book deal. She had her own book deal, but her friend (who was a year younger than her, to add insult to injury) was already garnering praise and attention from the press. To wit, she learned of the good news via a media newsletter.

It may sound petty to feel envious under such circumstances—after all there are surely many who gladly switch places with Gagnon—but I doubt there’s an author out there who couldn’t sympathize.

Since I signed my own book deal back in October, I’ve been spending a lot of time deliberately comparing my work to that of my contemporaries. This is a necessary part of figuring out how to market my book. Determining which authors appeal to the audience you hope to reach is a solid first step to connecting with that audience. But spending so much time thinking about how your work stacks up to those you admire—sometimes even reaching out to them to ask for their support in terms of a blurb—is humbling. You look at what they have—the prime spot on the bestseller list, the movie deal with Reese Witherspoon’s production company, the prestigious awards—and wonder how you could ever live up to it. You wonder: am I really in this league?

But, as I must keep reminding myself, envy is a spectacular waste of energy better used elsewhere. And in truth, no matter how good someone appears to have it, you never know what someone else’s life is really like. Jo Piazza—a writer many are doubtlessly envying furiously right about now—wrote last week about how perfect her life probably looks on social media, and how far from reality that image really is.

It is also true that, without exception, every writer I know who has had any measure of success (and many who haven't yet) has worked hard, has persevered through rejection, and done the noble work of continuing create in the face of the world’s indifference.    

When I catch myself feeling covetous of someone else’s success, I try to focus on how far I’ve come. My current success might not stack up so well to that of Cheryl Strayed or Donna Tartt, But compared to the career of Andrea Dunlop a year ago? I’m kicking ass.  

Letting it Go

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I first began working on the novel that is now The Sojourn thirteen years ago when I was a senior in college. (That sentence makes me want to go take a nap). Many, many other things happened in my writing life and actual life between now and then, of course, but the novel was always with me: as I wrote other novels, as I moved across the country and back again, loved, lost, tried several times to get published. These characters had staying power. Many of the details—probably a majority of them—have changed over the years, but Brooke, Sophie, and Alex have remained the book’s beating heart.

Now I’m in the process of reviewing first pass pages. The book is laid out as it will look on the page—seeing the words like this feels something like what I imagine seeing one’s daughter in a wedding dress would. My baby, all grown up.

First pass pages are my last real opportunity to make changes before my novel goes out into the world in March, and in galley form before that. Many very talented people have helped the book get to this point—my mentor Pat Geary (perhaps the only other person who has read every previous incarnation of the novel) my GFP editor, Amara, my agent, Carly, my Atria editor, Sarah, the copyeditor, etc. (Can you tell I’m working on my acknowledgements?). Now is the time for final touches, and then it’s done. Then I enter into that bargain with readers—critics included—that the book now belongs to them, belongs to the world. Brooke and Sophie and Alex will have to speak for themselves.

We all have to grow up someday.  

Handling Criticism

Last week I came upon yet another story about an author losing his mind over a bad review. (You can read through the debacle here if you have some time to kill.) The indie author in question went absolutely hysterical on a reviewer who left him a one star review, eventually resorting to calling her (and everyone else who jumped into the fray) the scum of the earth, accusing them of heartlessly sabotaging his career.

Lest you think this kind of behavior is limited to the Wild West world of Indie publishing, be assured that it isn’t. Not long ago bestselling author Ayelet Waldman threw a very public fit, not over a bad review but over the perceived snub of her latest novel not being included on the New York Times “Most Notable Books” list. Author Kathleen Hale actually stalked a reviewer and then wrote about it in a piece on The Guardian that is both compelling and cringe-worthy.  

Hale mention in the piece that Goodreads is aware of the the potential downfalls of letting authors and readers connect so directly. They issue the issue the following warning to authors who attempt to comment on reviews of their own work: 

“We really, really (really!) don’t think you should comment on this review, even to thank the reviewer. If you think this review is against our Review Guidelines, please flag it to bring it to our attention. Keep in mind that if this is a review of the book, even one including factual errors, we generally will not remove it.
“If you still feel you must leave a comment, click ‘Accept and Continue’ below to proceed (but again, we don’t recommend it).”

Most writers are sensitive people and having one’s work in the world can feel excruciatingly vulnerable. Feeling frustrated, pissed-off, and distraught over a bad review is absolutely understandable. Especially in this new world where “critics” include not only educated readers at papers of record with actual codes of conduct, but basically anyone with an internet connection and an axe to grind. And yet, reviews are never meant to be a dialog—no matter how bait-y they appear—and any author who does engage, loses almost by default. There is virtually no way to respond (at least publicly) to a review and come out looking good, the very act of doing it is petty. Putting art into the world for public consumption, you are opening yourself to criticism and it is a bargain that you must accept. This does not include, by the way, personal attacks. Your looks, your character, your worth as a person, shouldn’t be up for scrutiny. But reactions to your work? The good, the bad, and the ugly are all fair game.

So what’s an author to do?

Not reading reviews is an option. Gretchen Rubin, a bestselling author many times over, doesn’t read hers. I admire the discipline of a writer who can do that; I can imagine where that would be healthier than the alternative. I have a feeling that my curiosity would get the best of me though, and besides, if you never read the reviews, you also never get to hear the good.

It’s also worth remembering that getting reviewed in the first place is a privileged position. Many authors’ work—even that which comes from venerable publishing houses—is roundly ignored by the media. If there’s anything worse—or at least just as bad—as a bad review, it’s silence. 

The lucky writer has been through years—maybe decades—of rejection by the time they are receiving—or not receiving—their first reviews. They’ve forged an iron belief in themselves, they’ve built a resilience that can’t be shouted down. They’re determined to carry on no matter what. I like to think I’ve done some of that work over this last decade.

All the same, I might go ahead and stay off of Goodreads.